I once cycled where those flames are in the picture. Quite a ride of 8 hours on a rented mountain bike to Muir beach. I was in San Fransisco for a conference on Neuroscience. That is the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in flames..
Californians are moving to Texas, but Texas has as much to fear in terms of heatwaves and drought. It was predicted a long time ago (~57), mentioned in Congress. Around 1957 predictions of climate change where accurate. Republicans (not being democratic but fossil energy servants) pushed on, out of greed, not out of compassion or a desire to advance society. We see proof they don’t give a fuck about that every day. Personal gain is their only motive.
“I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers,” Gov. Gavin Newsom
So where does it leave Californians? With a lot of smoking treestumps, soot filled lungs and a new awareness of reality. A clear reference point to motivate action is developing. If you are a normal human being you think “This never again!”. Sadly in CA most people are econobots. They are moving and acting along the sugar trails of profit and bank approval. Banks don’t care about anything but cashflow and control. They will see CA turn into a barren desert as long as they keep making profit. The profit comes from loaning out fossil credit. Banks are fossil fuel distributers. This is why you can not expect them to do anything to improve the situation.
Money in the US is carboncredit
To survive as Californians the regiment of debt and banking has to be broken. This is a giant stretch for most and so its likely many will leave the region and/or nature will not be restored. This is the losing battle that ends in only a few humans living in the mountains under a pink sky (because of H2S evolution from the oceans) this is the ultimate doom scenario I discovered was in the script if we kept ourselves from a true proper response to warming. You can’t win the climate fight by moving to a safer place. You have to fight it where you are.
There is a significant difference between today and one hunderd years ago, and that is our technological advancement. It has barely been applied to the climate problem, and where it has it has had to battle economism constantly. California should become an extraeconomic zone, a Roboeconomic laboratory where there is a structural and rapid move to only use renewables. Then on the back of dropping prices and the developed technological infrastructure it should green itself in spite of the heat and the drought. This should be its mission, not to pay off debts and be economically succesfull.
Some bullet points to get started :
- Land can be landscaped using solar electric equipment to retain more rain
- Solar electric vehicles can be used to transport water
- Ionic solar thermal powered desalination can be used to generate fresh water
- Plants can be grown in the shade of solar panels
- Trees can be replanted by drones
- Homes can be build semi underground
- Streets can be covered by arches to cool and keep warm
- Airco systems can use night cold stored in water tanks instead of try to cool against the hot air
- Low cost robots can be developed to do some of these tasks, robots that will find a wide use around the planet
- Structual CO2 to Carbon conversion plants can be developed and build
The condition for all this is that resources are applied to their best use, not their most profitable use (which can mean they are not used at all!). Also CA needs to feed itself, so the population can sustain itself. That should be a major driver. Economically a state just consisting off megafarms all exporting everything would be fine. For humans this is a recipy for disaster. It may be the above development can not be entered into without a fight!
You hope smart people are not all Karens
We have seen Tesla emerge from CA because an electric car can be awesome and someone didn’t understand why it didn’t exist. We say California can be awesome even on a warming planet, and we don’t see why it should not achieve this awesomeness in the near future..
The Roboeconomy.com is about using robots, AI and renewables to fix the ecology and develop and pleasant peacefull world..